I had my first experience with a psychedelic drug – LSD – 3 days ago. I’ve now decided to write a report from my experiences. There are two main reasons I do so. Firstly I feel that I need to do it in order to better relate to my experience and make better sense of it. Secondly, I want to be able to remember the trip in the future. I also want to share my trip with others in case someone might have fun reading it or even find something useful.

I had been planning this for a long time. About 6 years to be precise. Actually it was the time that I first got the idea of trying psychedelics. As the moment passed I never got around to it until years later, when I happened to read a book by Albert Hoffman, the father of LSD. Instantly hooked again I started looking for LSD in order to experiment with it. I’ve never been a drug user. A few hits of cannabis is the most I’ve ever done. I’m a fairly heavy drinker though, so I certainly don’t patronize myself on that front. Why LSD then? The idea about expanding my mind and perceiving the world from another angle became very attractive to me. Not that I wanted to escape reality - I live a rather nice, albeit sometimes stressful, life – I was just curious about what else is there, I guess. I spent a lot of time reading other peoples trip reports and gathering information about the drug I was about to take. Finding the drug itself was not an easy task - it took me about 3 months to finally aquire 3 hits. To my delight, they came in the form of foil wrapped sugar cubes.

A week after that me and one of my best friends took a ride to my summer cottage which is situated in a small village near the sea. It was a Friday evening and both of us had been at work for the whole day. We had a little debate whether to do it in the evening or to have a full nights sleep to trip during the daytime. Finally we decided to do it right away in order to leave us a little more time for recovery. We built a nice campfire, had a few beers and then let the sugar cubes melt in our mouths. We listened to some mellow music and talked about anything that came to mind. The night was dark and pretty typical for autumn – windy with the occasional few drops of rain. That didn’t bother us in the slightest since we had an awesome campfire to warm ourselves with.

About an hour after taking the cubes we started to feel a little bit funky. The music started to feel really good and did I tell you that we had orange juice to go with our trip? I’ve never tasted anything so good in my life. The taste was so full and it resonated with all of my taste buds. When we had our first sip, me and my friend looked each other in the eyes and just started laughing in unison as we knew something was up. A little bit after that I noticed that the colour of our campfire was almost white. As we admired it, we thought that we had built the greatest campfire ever. It was just so beautiful. At one point we were a little bit startled as the music started to feel like it was around us. We quickly realized that it was actually a locust that started singing to the tune of our music.

About 2 hours into the trip we were both very happy and calm.

About 2 hours into the trip we were both very happy and calm.

Occasionally we would remark on something around us that seemed a little bit unusual. In one moment, when we had let our campfire burn a bit low, we were a bit startled about a huge spotlight lighting us from behind. When we looked behind ourselves we saw that it was actually the usual lamp we have on our patio. It does not burn bright at all, but we perceived it as a huge spotlight behind us. We quickly built up the fire again and the spotlight faded a little bit. A little bit after that I stood up and started looking at the grass that was moving in the wind. It took about 5 seconds for fantastic patterns emerge in the grass. It felt like the ground was breathing and it was amazing.

About 3 hours into the trip we started to feel that the trip was about to end. Maybe it was because I had put on some music that was too energetic instead of the mellow vibes we had before. Anyway, I decided to switch back to the mellow music and me and my friend smoked a little cannabis. About 5 minutes later we were both watching the grass again, as it started to move again. We were just looking at it, mesmerized, when all of a sudden I felt like my head grew a few pounds heavier and I decided to sit down by the fire again.

I was sitting eyes closed and giggling at the funny images that were flashing before my eyes for about 5 minutes when I suddenly started to feel a little nausea. I then decided to go into my house to lie down. I told so to my friend who was still standing, looking and the grass, and entered the house. I also started to feel a little anxious but I tried to reassure myself that it is normal. I took off my overcoat, put an empty bowl in front of my bed in case I needed to throw up and then remembered that we had just added some logs to the campfire. By that time it was pretty hard to concentrate but I still went out and rearranged the logs so that there would be no chance of a fire in case nobody touched those again. Then I went back to the house and lied down and crept under a sleeping bag.

I realized that I was about to start hallucinating and tripping. Images were already flashing before my eyes extremely fast accompanied by meaningless bits of syllables forming words that don't exist. The imagery I saw was very cartoonish. With the images came the thought-rally. I had about 15 thoughts all at once and it was impossible to concentrate on any of them since it just led to new thoughts. This startled me a bit and I felt myself getting anxious again. Again I reassured myself that I was tripping and it was going to be all right. I had a clock in my view and even though I though I had been lying down for a long time, it only amounted to about 2 minutes.

I then decided to experiment for a bit. I took my cellphone and started the stopwatch. I was literally dumbfounded to see that I could count all the tenths of a second and it took forever for the clock to get to the 5 second mark.

I was literally dumbfounded to see that I could count all the tenths of a second and it took forever for the clock to get to the 5 second mark.

Even further – the seconds seemed to slow down. I decided to write this valuable insight into the memory of my cellphone. As I put my cellphone down I heard music coming in from the outside and the song seemed to be time-stretched to about –infinity. At this point I realized that time was going to stop all together. I was little worried about that but I decided to accept it as I realized I had no control over any of it and it was probably wiser to accept everything and keep myself as calm as possible.

By now time had almost lost all meaning. I remember feeling that my life was divided into ~6 different time-slots and I could have a different thought in each of these time-slots and they kept cycling for a few cycles. „Jeez“, I thought, „This is what going schizophrenic must feel like!“. That effect soon ended and I was left with a neverending cascade of cartoonish pictures and thoughts that I really had no option to concentrate on. I lost all my bearings and I was deep into the trip. I remember thinking that what if this is what going insane feels like? But again I chose to accept everything and deal with the possible insanity when the trip was over.

At some point I remember that I was transported back to my child self who was very confused. A calm entity stood over me and offered reassurance: „Don’t worry, we will take care of you in here“. A bit after that I had a vision about me being one with all the living beings in the universe. I know it's a cliche, but I distinctly remember the feeling of unity and a steady hand guiding me through the experience and reassuring me. I also remember being on a antique roman galley and setting sail on the river with a pat on the back from the people who stayed behind with words „We welcome you among ourselves“. Somewhere around this time my friend decided to come into the house to lie down too. I remember being a little startled by his entry but then I greeted him and told him where his designated bunk bed was. I also advised him to get under covers in order to not get a cold. Afterwards my friend told me, that he thought I wasn't tripping at all, I looked so normal. Actually I really had to concentrate to be coherent to him. I guess it goes to show that even though tripping, it is still possible to maintain human contact on some basic level.

There were some brief respites from tripping hard. I think they came in as a sinusoid and they lasted for a very brief while. During those times I got back to my body to get my bearings. I was also able to watch the clock (20 minutes after starting to trip hard) and reassure myself that all is ok. I had a pretty anxious feeling in my stomach during some points of the trip, but it never got any worse since I was able to keep my composure (I guess I say that alot don't I?).

About 1,5h after starting to trip the effects started to fade and I was able to return to my body for a longer while. The visuals came back of course, but they were somehow fewer and I was able to handle them with relative ease. About 2 hours after that I felt better yet but still not steady enough to climb out of the bed. About 6 hours after starting to trip I finally decided that I was „back to earth“ and decided to celebrate by taking a long piss in the yard and eating an orange in the house. After that I finally went to sleep.

The day after, we just basked in the sun, drank a few beers, had a barbecue and just talked about our experience. My friends trip was an awesome one. He told me that he only started to get a little anxious in the latter stages of the trip when he thought that „enough is enough“, but he was still tripping a little bit.

In conclusion I don't regret trying LSD. Even though I thought I was well prepared for the trip, the intensity of the trip is something that I think nobody can really prepare for. I consider myself lucky that I was able to contain my anxiety and I didn't let this experience become a bad one. The trip literally opened my eyes to another realities in a sense that at times during the trip I was furthest away from home I’ve ever been. I also gained insight into where Salvador Dali and countless other artists and musicians get their inspiration from. I also remember understanding why David Lynch makes his movies the way that he does. As to myself, I found out that I have been suffering from a mild form of anxiety disorder probably related to the stress at work, my alcohol consumption at weekends and lack of regular exercise. I actually understood this while tripping. I had been having the symptoms long before it, but the trip somehow intensified it and I still feel a little queasy 3 days after tripping, while writing this report. It isn't anything too bad and I will most probably be able to cure myself from this problem. However it goes to show that LSD is not to be taken lightly.

Would I ever do it again? I’m not sure at this point. Definitely not in the near future, but maybe in a couple of years? Who knows. However I don’t think I will be smoking cannabis while under the influence of LSD again. It made the trip a bit too intense for my liking.

LSD (2) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Personal Preparation (45), First Times (2), General (1)

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